Reaching a Boiling Point

What do the Planned Parenthood videos, two mothers on the campaign trail, and an obscure Old Testament law have in common?

The videos from the Center for Medical Progress have roused government officials, political candidates, and the media. They can no longer obfuscate their positions like they once did. Sure, they can try to do so, but the attempts now ring hollow. The difference between those who believe that harvesting unborn baby body parts from abortion is evil and those who do not is becoming quite clear.

Look at the two mothers running for president for instance.

Carly Fiorina has spoken clearly on this matter. Though technically a stepmother, Fiorina helped raise the two children from her second marriage as her own. During her run for California senator in 2009, which she eventually lost to Barbara Boxer, Fiorina had two personal crises. She battled breast cancer, suffering through a double mastectomy and chemotherapy. In the midst of this serious health matter, her eldest daughter tragically took her life. During this awful time, she testifies that she turned back to the Lord. Her rediscovered faith appears to help fuel her passion on the issue of abortion as seen in the second presidential debate:

On the other hand, Hillary Clinton, famous mother of Chelsea, continues to support wholeheartedly Planned Parenthood. She not only is attacking the veracity of the videos, but even defending the right to an abortion up to the time of birth.

One can only imagine if Chelsea ever thinks about what her mother’s beliefs could have meant for her.

All of which brings us to that Old Testament verse.* The text is found Deuteronomy 14:21, “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.” What does this obscure and revolting verse have to do with the videos and these mothers?

The idea of a young goat being boiled in its own mother’s life-giving fluid seems like a strike against nature itself. Taking the very substance produced by the mother goat to nourish her offspring and using it to cook the baby goat just seems barbaric, does it not? Then to actually eat that mixture seems even more so. Indeed, the old Keil-Delitzsch Commentary says about this practice that it is “indicating a contempt of the relation which God has established and sanctified between parent and young, and thus subverting the divine ordinances.” God is laying forth a principle here. We are to honor and cherish the relationship between a mother and child, even in the way we treat animals.

Now I remind you that the word we use for a baby goat is “kid.” Interesting that we have borrowed that same word to describe our human offspring. Surely any reader out there would think it beyond cruel if we read of a crime where a newborn child had been boiled in its mother’s milk. Even more so if it was eaten. That is so disgusting I can barely write it. I hate even putting that unthinkable thought before you.

Yet I remind you that every day thousands of these unborn human kids are cut up and/or chemically boiled in the life-giving fluids of their mother’s wombs. Those who perform these practices are sustaining their lives with careers built on abortion. They are literally taking the blood money from aborting and selling babies to buy their food and drink. That is truly jarring and revolting.

You may think that the above paragraphs are an unfair jump. Taking an ancient law about an animal and trying to draw a moral lesson out of it for humans may seem unwarranted. Yet nearly every child’s story you read to your own kids, with its use of animals, does the very same thing. Besides, I believe that is truly God’s original intent in verses such as this one. I remind you that in another place in Scripture the apostle Paul uses the Old Testament law about not muzzling the ox to teach the church about caring for its pastors. In the midst of this he says, “God is not concerned about oxen, is He?” (I Corinthians 9:9). God’s true concern is – and always has been – people. In the same way, I might say, “God is not concerned about goat kids, is He?” For we know human kids, created in His image, fashioned by Him in the womb (Psalm 139:13-16), welcomed and blessed by the Savior (Matthew 19:13-14), are very much His concern.

In light of these videos, clearly both of these mothers are heating up the rhetoric to express their views. They reflect that the very nature of the subject is bringing to the surface the rawest of human emotion. Culturally things appear to be reaching a boiling point.

We need to pray that the Lord has not reached His yet with our nation.

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*Note that many of the thoughts on this text were drawn from a previous post that I did.